by Roberto Friedman

Citizen Jane: Battle for the City,
a documentary directed by Matt Tyrnauer
now in theaters, isa good primer on
the life of urban activist Jane Jacobs, author of The Death and Life of American Cities (1961).
Jacobs was key in developing grass-roots opposition to neighborhood-destroying
"urban renewal" in midcentury NYC. Her arch-nemesis was the powerful
"master builder" Robert Moses.

Moses was responsible for the construction of critical
infrastructure in New York, including some mighty bridges and tunnels. But he
didn't know when to stop, and his megalomaniacal plans for giant highways crisscrossing
Manhattan would have destroyed Greenwich Village, SoHo, Little Italy and
TriBeCa, the way his earlier projects decimated the South Bronx and East
Harlem. Jacobs mobilized citizen support to protect what was left of the urban
fabric, and thereby saved the soul of a great city.

There's very little in Tyrnauer's film that any student of
city planning or urban studies doesn't already know, but the basic precepts of
Jacobs' thinking are certainly relevant for our times and our city. Here's Out
There's take:

City planning should be about people, not about
buildings. You don't start with the
blueprint, you start with the existing street life, and plan out from there.
Buildings that turn their backs to street life at ground level are poisonous to
cities. Streets and sidewalks only become safe spaces when there are "eyes
on the street," an intimate interplay between public and private spaces.
Blank walls and parking garages do not supply this.

Great cities are for everybody, not just for the rich and
powerful. A great urban fabric is
characterized by diversity: all kinds of people and activity, the mixed use of
public space. You needn't be a consumer to be a good citizen. A city's parks
and public spaces should not be privatized for the exclusive use of the
wealthy. Every time Yerba Buena Gardens or Civic Center is closed off to host a
private party for Oracle shareholders, Out There seethes inside.

Single-passenger-use cars are the enemy of life in the cities.
Pedestrians, cyclists, skateboarders,
public-transit users, and carpoolers: all are kinder to public life than
carbon-spewers speeding along in their private bubbles. Who best experiences
urban life? It sure ain't the fat cat in the Uber.

Perspicacious pal Pepi
has a brilliant idea in response to mooks who like to drive by leaning on their
car horns. Automobile manufacturers should be required to install a speaker
inside their cars so that hoggy honkers can hear the level of noise pollution
they're making. Amplified.

Urban development in China today is like Robert Moses on
steroids. In the 21st century we're seeing
all of the mistakes of 20th-century modernism play out in the booming new
cities of Asia, except that the scale of construction is exponentially greater.
Societies have to make their own mistakes? But there's always the possibility
of education, and redemption.

Cities change, that's what makes a city. But Jane Jacobs
would insist we can manage the change. Be skeptical of the experts. Goals of
enlightened urban planning are about more than making real estate developers,
and the politicians who enable them, wealthy. Bay Area citizens, take back your
cities! You have nothing to lose but your traffic jams.